The present system relates to farming systems and methods.
CBD (Cannabidiol) is a compound that has shown promise in a variety of medical applications, from pain relief to relieving anxiety, and many other ailments in between. A major benefit to CBD is that it doesn't contain THC, which is the compound that makes users high, so this makes CBD an ideal medication for children.
There are many ways to extract the oil from the plant and make cbd oil. Apeks Supercritical systems use CO2 as a solvent to extract the oil. The solvent is considered a cleaner, purer form of extraction because there is no residue after extraction.
To isolate the individual compounds (CBD being one of them), the extracted oil needs to be distilled after extraction. The first step is a process called Winterization, followed by Short Path Distillation.
Winterization is the process to remove undesirable elements that were extracted from the plant, for example fats, waxes and lipids. This process is only needed when the oil was extracted at high pressure/high temperature (supercritical) because this intense extraction pulls everything from the plant, including material you don't want in the final product. The extracted oil is effectively crude oil, which needs refining. Once extracted, the mixture is combined with 200 proof alcohol and stirred vigorously until completely mixed. It's then placed in a deep freezer overnight. In the morning, the mixture looks cloudy and is ready for filtration. One way to filter out the fats, etc. is to run it through a filter paper into an extraction jar. A common piece of equipment for this is a Buchner Funnel. Once it's been filtered to satisfaction and the undesirable elements have been removed, it's time to remove the alcohol. This is done using heat. The extraction is warmed and as its warmed, the alcohol evaporates since the boiling point of alcohol is lower than the oil. The removed alcohol can then be reused on a different batch of crude oil. To further refine the extract, and to isolate the CBD, the oil goes through Short Path Distillation. This works in much the same way as Winterization in that the extract is heated and each compound is then separated because each one has a different boiling point. In this way, each compound is isolated and can be used by itself.